Climbing a Rainbow
by Cubby250
Summary: How to climb a rainbow and the pitfall of doing it incorrectly
"Is this really necessary? I mean we could do it later if you wanted to. I'm sure it'd wait until tomorrow or something."

"That's what you think. One of the first things every Lost Boy has to know is how to climb a rainbow."

I didn't really object to learning how to climb a rainbow, but I was worried that I might not do it right or something. I'm not sure why, but I always worried about stuff like that. Besides, I wondered what would happen if I managed to fall off. Red had told me not to worry about it, but I was pretty sure if someone could manage to fall off a rainbow, it'd be me. At lease when I fell out of a tree, there were normally a lot of branches between me and the ground to bounce off of and slow my fall. I was pretty sure there wasn't any such protective devices attached to rainbows. "Why?"

"Why, what?" Red asked as he led me into a copse of trees that protected us a little from the rain that was still falling.

"Why does every Lost Boy need to know how to climb a tree?"

I almost ran into Red as he came to a sudden stop. He looked back at me. "Well… Because… They just do. Okay?" I grinned and nodded at him. Satisfied, he turned back and led me out the other side of the copse. We were standing in a field that looked as though it had rained rocks and boulders all over it. The ground was muddy and all churned up. In the very center of the field was the end of the rainbow.

"That's awesome," I whispered, looking at it. The rainbow was made up of all the different colours you normally expect to see in a rainbow. Instead of being solid, each colour was made up of large strands, each one of them being made of smaller strands. Each strand was in constant motion, wrapping itself around those strands next to it. In addition to the strands wrapping and unwrapping, the colours pulsated in a way that almost seemed like there was a rhythm to it. Every time I thought I almost had it figured out something would seem off and I'd realize there wasn't any pattern at all until I started staring again. "Where's the pot of gold?" I asked as I looked around the base of the rainbow.

"Yeah, right. Don't you think this place would be swarming with pirates if there was really gold at the end of a rainbow?"

I felt a little cheated. Not that I had any use for a bunch of gold or anything, I just thought it'd be pretty cool to see a pot with a handle overflowing with gold. Not to mention it'd probably work wonders in the wishing well. "Can pirates even find the end of the rainbow?"

Red mused on that for a moment. "I dunno. Maybe. You gotta be pretty much a dreamer to find the end of a rainbow though, and that don't fit a whole lot of pirates." He stood there in thought for another few seconds and then seemed to wake up from whatever pondering he was doing. "C'mon, Furball. We don't have much time left. You should have moved faster."

"You didn't tell me we were on some sort of schedule," I retorted. "You should have told me to move faster."

"You mean more than the fifty times I already did?" Knowing there was absolutely no way I was going to win this argument, I pointed out that we were wasting what was apparently precious time in arguing. He looked at me as if he thought I was trying to pull something over on him, but nodded. "Okay, you first."

"Whatcha mean, 'You first?'" I demanded. "I dunno what I'm supposed to do."

"All you have to do is climb up. It's not like you're trying to scale a mountain or something."

Red was correct in that. The slope of the rainbow was a lot less than I'd have thought it would be from seeing rainbows far away. I stood on the end of it, waiting for my foot to plunge through. Instead there was a sort of soft feeling as if the surface gave just a little or the strands that made it up parted just a tiny bit. The area under the surface was firm and gave me a little bit of confidence. It felt a little warm under my pawmocs as if the sun had been shining on it a long time. I started up and had only gotten a few steps when my left foot slipped on the surface. I tumbled, bounced off the rainbow and landed flat on my back. Red did a very poor job of pretending not to laugh.

That happened three or four times. The surface was very slick and between that and my innate clumsiness, I just couldn't get any footing on the rainbow. I finally gave up trying to look cool and started up crawling. That worked a lot better and I made it up a fair distance. As soon as Red saw I probably wasn't going to tumble back down and flatten him, he started up too. He'd only gotten halfway up when he started yelling at me.

"What's wrong?" I asked trying not to do anymore tumbling.

"We have to jump off."

"Are you crazy?" I said looking down at the ground that suddenly seemed to be very, very far away. "I can't. I'm too high. Why do I gotta jump anyway?"

Red simply tumbled off from where he was and landed causing a splash of mud. "It's the rainbow," he yelled up at me. "The rain is stopping and it's gonna vanish. You gotta hurry or you'll be stuck in it."

Being stuck in a rainbow didn't sound real promising. I started to climb back down.

"Jump! You gotta jump. You don't have enough time to climb down."

There was an alarming liquid creaking from the rainbow as the strands stopped moving as fast as they had before. The colours weren't pulsing nearly as quickly as they were before either and I felt as though my pawmoc was sinking deeper into the surface. I tried to jump. Really. I just kept looking down and it seemed like it was a thousand feet to the ground, and I'm not the most cowardly Lost Boy for nothing. I closed my eyes and felt the solid part of the rainbow give way.

I slipped down as far as my stomach and felt as though I was in warm mud. It was hard to move my legs. My paws never did touch anything, but I didn't sink any further. The liquid creaking sound continued and at one point my stomach ended up in my throat as the piece of the rainbow I was stuck in plummeted towards the ground. Before I had a chance to scream, wretch, or whimper, the rainbow piece was hurtling back towards the sky. Below me I heard Red yelling something, but didn't have any clue as to what it was. The up-and-down effect happened a couple times and then it was as if a giant hand on each end of the rainbow pulled it taunt. The rainbow hummed like a rubber band and when it stretched I ended up going under the surface. My eyes were open by this time. A look around showed me yellow trees, green sky and red grass among other things. As I started to worry about what would happen if I tried to breathe rainbow, there was a sharp snap like someone cracking a whip. I found myself tumbling through the air and then falling towards the ground. I was right about no branches and I hit the muddy ground with a tremendous splash.

I lay there for a few minutes trying to discover if I was still alive. I was sore all over, so I figured I'd probably survived. Above me I heard Red splashing through the mud calling my name and a second later he pulled me out of the muck. "You're not supposed to do that," I said absently. "I could have had a broken back or something."

"Like that's ever going to happen to you." I wasn't sure if he was being sarcastic or what, but he sounded pretty worried about the whole thing. At least he did until he broke out into peals of laughter.

"What?"

"Oh my gosh. I can't believe this. Wait until you see yourself." He was laughing so hard that he could barely get the words out. His face turned so red that I began worrying about whether he was having some sort of seizure or something. I started pounding him on the back to help him breathe and that's when I got a suspicion of what he was laughing about. My hand looked as though it had been dipped in several different cans of paint. I looked down at my pelt, but all I could see was dripping brown mud from my less-than-graceful landing.

"We gotta go to the river."

Red looked at me as though he wasn't sure whether to laugh even harder or drop his jaw in shock. He finally decided on a combination. "Y-You want to go to the river? Why?" I mumbled something. "Why?" he asked again. "I couldn't understand you."

"Because I need a bath to see what's under this mud." He burst out laughing covering me in spray. I wiped my face off. His eyes got even wider and he collapsed on the ground in hysterical laughter. "What?"

"You should see your face."

This time I hauled _him_ to his feet and started dragging him to the river. We'd have gotten to the Little Bear faster, but I had to keep snagging Red before he wandered off. I knew if I let him get away, by the time I got to the river every Lost Boy would be there to greet me. I looked at my hand again and shook my head.

When we got to the river, I just jumped in without fanfare. The river around me immediately became brown as the mud was washed from my pelt. I frowned as I noticed that along with the brown there were also traces of green, blue, yellow, purple and a lot of other rainbow type colors. I jumped up and down in the water until the worst of the mud was gone. The pelt looked as though it had been caught in some sort of ill-conceived dye explosion. Some parts were tie-dyed, others were striped and there were even a few polka-dots and ripples.

"Nice job, Furball. I think you'll make a great fashion statement. Either that or the next time we're in battle, you're going to be the only one fighting cuz you stand out so much. But you haven't seen the best part yet. C'mere."

I looked at him suspiciously but finally left the water and walked to where he was standing. He pointed to the water and I looked down. Looking back at me was a round-faced kid. Instead of red hair, yellow and green hair was above the face. The face itself looked as though it belonged to a zebra, except instead of white with black stripes it was blue with red stripes with freckles of purple. "But…" I said.

"Exactly. And before you ask, no, I don't know how long it'll take to wear off or even if it will. But you gotta admit, I did tell you not to get caught in a rainbow."

"But you should have told me why."

"Would you have jumped?"

"Maybe," I hedged. "This is pretty awful."

"Aw, don't worry about it. I have a paper bag you can use for your head and maybe I won't even tell anyone that you voluntarily took a bath."

"It wasn't a bath. It was a swim. A bath involves soap and cloths and Tide. This was just me going swimming."

"Uh-huh."


End file.
